What are you giving yourself permission for today?

A permission slip for your business + 3 favourites

Looking at the garden earlier this week, I was so pleased to see the changing colours that herald Autumn: the tall grass slowly becoming more reddish, the leaves of the clematis darkening, the heads of the echinacea turning a dusty dark pink.

A few weeks ago, I was reminded of the power of permission slips when I attended a workshop in the Aligned Community by Rhiannon Adler on creating a website. Writing down my permission slip for that day gave me an immense sense of peace that today I want to pass on to you.

What are you giving yourself permission for today?

I very much believe that we know deep inside what we need and what we crave, but that often expectations, demands, stories and to-do lists can muddle that knowing. So, right now, I’d invite you to take a breath. To ground yourself in the chair or sofa sitting in, feeling the contact with the floor or chair. Knowing that you can trust that need inside of you, ask yourself: what am I giving myself permission for today?

It needn’t be a long sentence. It needn’t even be a fully articulated word. Perhaps it’s just a feeling. Go with it.

Giving yourself permission

Whenever I ask myself this question, a lot of the time the answer is “rest” or “space”. As much as I’ve worked to incorporate both in my daily life over the past few years, I still need to remind myself of it. Of identifying when I need rest—especially when I have plans, when I want to finish a project, when I just want to get on with things. I no longer see rest as something to squeeze in once the entire to-do list is done. But giving myself permission to rest is something that I do need reminding of every now and then.

Once you’ve identified what you want to give yourself permission for, see if you can make it happen. If “rest” came up for you, can you move things around today? Can take you an hour before the school run just for you? Can you delegate something? What is really necessary, what really needs to be done right now?

Perhaps a really specific thing came up when you asked yourself what you wanted to give yourself permission for. Permission to not attend that event you’d committed to. To follow that big idea you had, even though you see no one else doing it. To reach out to your dream client or a possible collaborator. To watch trashy TV in the middle of the day.

Whatever it is, can you make it happen?

Reminding myself of that deep inner knowing inside of me is really empowering for me. There is so much noise out there for what we ought to do—around our businesses, around our lives, around our bodies, how we move, what we eat, how we raise our children… With all that noise, and all those shoulds, it sometimes seems as if we really can’t trust ourselves and our needs. Apparently, we need a whole industry of advice books and websites to tell us. But that’s not true.

You can trust yourself. Even if you see no one else doing or desiring what you feel, what you know, inside, you can trust yourself, your needs, your body, your business.

A permission slip is a great first step.

a puzzle | I got back into jigsaw puzzles and loved doing this one with all the autumn colours.

autumn days | Speaking of colours, the garden is slowly moving into autumn too, and leaves are darkening, browning and becoming crisp. I love watching it.

podcast | I was a guest on Liz Mosley’s Build Your Brand podcast where we chatted about quitting social media—it was a great conversation!

What are your favourites this week?

A focus + follow-through session gives you my support when you need it without the long-term commitment.

Clients have used these sessions to make a plan for the next steps in their business, reviewed their marketing strategy with me, gained focus on the boundaries they need to set and more.

a 60-minute call, followed by a 30-minute accountability check-in a few weeks later

£150 | €170

What are you giving yourself permission to do this week? What do you need or want in your business and your life? Do share in the comments ✨